LANSING, Mich. — While we don't have any official numbers from the state on how many people have recovered from COVID-19, individual hospitals are making a point to celebrate each patient sent home.
Sparrow hospital, like many others, is trying to focus not on the number of positive cases, but the positive results they're seeing.
"We made a display down in the lobby that states 50 people have been discharged. One of the reasons why we really wanted to pout that number out there is because we wanted to be able to show we have been able to take care of our community and discharge at least 50 people that tested positive for COVID," Amy Brown, Chief Nursing Officer at Sparrow Hospital said.
Brown says the number of discharged patients has been accumulating since they received their first positive case and they're looking forward to seeing more.
"We probably have an additional 25 that are currently admitted to the hospital that are improving each day," she said.
Which could mean that those 25 patients will be getting discharged soon as well, but before that can happen, brown says an examination must happen.
"In order to be discharged we want to make sure that the patient is able to maintain their oxygen saturation, obviously the physician has to determine if they're able to be discharged but really we just want to make sure they're breathing well, that they're going to be okay to be at home and not have an increase in their severity in their respiratory conditions," Nurse Brown said.
The check-ups don't stop there for Sparrow patients. Jim Boucher, a COVID-19 survivor says the hospital calls him at least once a week to see how he's doing.
"She called me daily for the first week after I was out and then after the first week, she said we'll drop it down to once a week and I'll check in on you. Now that I'm home, only if I really exert myself does it bother me, other than that I'm pretty much back to normal," Boucher said.
Boucher says the recovery wasn't easy but it can defiantly be done.
"I was about as bad as you can be and they pulled me through it, so it's certainly possible," he said.
Although she can't confirm what the pandemic will look like she says this is a silver lining.
"I can't be confident to say that it's absolutely declining, but overall our numbers of positive cases have continued to decline. So, I think that's a positive sign," Nurse Brown says.
She says the hospital is continuing to monitor the numbers of patients coming in with the virus and those being discharged.
Sparrow hospital says all of the 50 patients it's discharged seem to be doing well at home.
Want to see more local news ? Visit the FOX47News Website.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere.
Download our free app for Appleand Android
and
Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox.
Select from these options: Breaking News, Severe Weather, School Closings, Daily Headlines and Daily Forecasts.
